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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441898">How Lives The Baron</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson'>fringeperson</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mary Poppins (Movies), Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns, Peter Pan (1953)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Don't copy to another site, F/M, I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote this and I know better now, Old Fic, but I'm not going to deny its existance just because it's old and bad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:20:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441898</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Baron is long lived, and once he was busy, but he was forgotten, until one day someone needed his help again...</p><p>~</p><p>Literally the very first fic that I ever posted on FFN, and I'm starting with this one again here.  Originally written in '07.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Baron Humbert von Gikkingen/Yoshioka Haru, Bert/Mary Poppins (Background), Peter Pan/Wendy Darling (Background)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Goodbye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I warn you again, this is Very Old Writing - and I haven't changed anything except a couple of typos.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Well, I think that's everything," said the dark haired woman, scanning the now bare room for any of her precious possessions she may have missed.</p><p>"No Mary Poppins, not everything," said a silken voice from the bedside table.</p><p>The nanny turned to the voice and smiled. It had been a pleasure working with the nobleman again.</p><p>"Everything that goes in my carpet bag, Baron. I wouldn't dream of letting you see the inside of my luggage," she said, extending a hand to him.</p><p>The elegantly dressed orange cat figurine delicately ascended the extended appendage and sat down in it. It was more stable than standing.</p><p>"The children were delightful, and the father came around rather well, wouldn't you say?" the Baron enquired, looking up at the woman who had been his hostess for the past month. "It will be difficult to leave them behind."</p><p>"Indeed, but practically perfect people must never allow sentiment to muddle their thinking."</p><p>"Ha! You don't fool me a bit, Mary Poppins, you <em>love</em> these children, and the family will just need to hire another nanny if you leave."</p><p>Both woman and figurine turned to see a sensible black umbrella with a green parrot handle. It was the parrot that had spoken.</p><p>"That is quite enough, thank you," Mary Poppins said, glaring slightly at the only other thing she had not put in her bag.</p><p>Allowing the Baron to take up residence upon her shoulder, Miss Poppins took up bag and brolly and headed downstairs. She nodded farewell to the backs of the family she was leaving – they were flying a kite together. Indeed, it seemed as though the entire neighbourhood had come out to fly their kites. It was a fine day, with just the right amount of wind, and there was Bert, selling kites to everyone who had come into the street and found themselves to be without one. She could hardly help but smile; he always brightened her day.</p><p>Opening the umbrella, she held it up and took off.</p><p>"Farewell, Mary Poppins. Don't stay away too long," she heard the smiling, slightly lanky gentleman say.</p><p>She smiled a smile just for him, a promise that she would come back. He was a very different gentleman to the feline riding her shoulder, yet so similar. Bert joyed in life, doing everything, knowing most everyone, and always knowing just the right thing to say. One would never find the Baron working as a chimney sweep, or creating wonderful pictures on the pavement, but his tea was wonderful, and helping other people was what he most enjoyed doing. Yet, despite their myriad of differences, they could both be described as the perfect gentleman, except that one was a carved cedar feline figurine.</p><p>"Hello Mary Poppins. Ah Baron, I'm glad I found you; you're needed at the refuge," it was Toto, the stone crow who usually flew the Baron where the figurine needed to go.</p><p>"Of course Toto. Please excuse me Miss Poppins, I hope we can take the time for tea together some time," the Baron said, standing up on her shoulder and bowing to her.</p><p>"Certainly Baron. Take care, both of you," she said, watching the cat jump onto the bird. Another smile lit up her features as she watched the almost unlikely pair fly away in another direction. "It seems that I shall be able to join Nanny McPhee for luncheon after all," she said to herself, shifting the direction her umbrella was pointing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"What's the matter Toto?" The Baron asked as the crow headed for the refuge.</p><p>"Muta was searching for a file," the bird explained, beating his wings a few times to gain further height and greater speed.</p><p>"Oh," said the noble cat in understanding. He could remember the last time Muta had tried to find one particular thing in the house without him there to tell him exactly where it was. Some things were fairly obvious: the teapot was on the open shelf of the tea cabinet, and the books were alphabetised along the shelves. The files however, were in chronological order, and Muta had some difficulty with this. The Baron prepared himself to be faced with paper all over his carpet.</p><p>Opening his front door, he would have liked to have been disappointed. Muta was in the very centre of the room, on all fours, shifting one bit of paper past another in his search. The only place he could see <em>any</em> carpet was beneath the coffee table, and that was only a very small piece, in the exact centre where the paper had not yet slipped.</p><p>"Muta," Baron said, a polite greeting, as if his home were not in an almost impossible mess.</p><p>"Oh Baron!" Muta looked up, surprised. The gluttonous cat didn't bother to be ashamed of the mess, but rather looked about him as if suddenly aware that he had <em>made</em> it, then smiled and shrugged. There was nothing to be done. "Have you seen the case report for the Darling children?"</p><p>"The last time I saw it, it was in the filing cabinet, about halfway through May in the year 1902. Now, though, I wouldn't begin to know where to look for it. What did you want it for?" The gentleman asked, not even raising his voice as he hung his top hat, cane and tailcoat on the coat stand.</p><p>"To enter a further development. Miss Wendy Darling isn't going to be Miss Darling much longer, she's engaged to one Mister George Edwards. Wedding date yet unknown, though certain." The fat cat explained, returning to his search of the papers before and below him, as the Baron was unable to tell him exactly where to find the file any longer.</p><p>"But the girl is only seventeen, there's still time for Peter to come around." The Baron said. His tone was rather more confused than affronted or hopeful that anything would change simply because he wished it to. The two had met each other when Wendy was just nine and Peter was eleven. Peter had started having birthdays again after he had met Wendy. Something he hadn't done for decades – if time could even be measured on Neverland beyond the seasons.</p><p>"It's arranged. Not the girl's idea at all as I understand it, though she has no grounded objections. Young Peter would have to do something rather spectacular to change anything at this point, and then he would still have to receive her father's permission. Unless he wanted to elope with the girl, which he probably would, if he knew what it meant," the real cat said to the wooden one.</p><p>"You're right of course," the orange tom admitted, pouring himself a cup of tea. He would have made a cup for Muta, but the rotund grouch disliked it for some unaccountable reason.</p><p>"Aha! Found it at last!" The almost completely white cat said, holding up the file in his paw in triumph.</p><p>"Does Peter even know?" the Baron asked, sipping his tea.</p><p>"I was just going to tell him when I saw you with Miss Poppins," Toto answered. The crow had been watching the conversation interestedly, wondering if this might at last crack the Baron's perfect composure. Nothing seemed to flap the cedar figure however. He never raised his voice or showed any kind of emotion beyond curiosity or determination, unless tea was involved or something tickled his idiosyncratic sense of humour.</p><p>"Thank you Toto," he said, draining his cup of the last bit of tea it held and rising from his armchair. "If you would return to that, I think I had best begin the task of tidying and filing the reports all over again." In fact, the Baron looked forward to the task. Daunting as it would have been to almost any other creature, it was something that would pass the time for the aristocrat, who otherwise had very little to do if there was no one requiring his help.</p><p>"Muta, when you have finished the addition, I would like you to please take notes while I dictate the events of the case I have just completed with Miss Mary Poppins," the figurine said, rolling up his sleeves as he knelt to the carpeting of old cases.</p><p>Slowly, over the course of many hours, the carpet turned into relatively neat piles. Shortly after finishing the newest report for the Baron, Muta had fallen asleep on the divan. Satisfied with his night's work, and yawning slightly, the Baron decided that he needed sleep. Checking the time, he saw that it was well after midnight. No wonder it was getting harder to read the words on the pages: he had been awake for twenty-two hours. Normally, he would take up hat, cane and coat and resume his wooden nature, but tonight he felt like true sleep, and headed for his bedroom, nearly forgetting to take his hat and coat with him.</p><p>His room had a slightly faded emerald-green wallpaper, with pine skirtings that came to the height of his waist all the way around the room. The bed was an oak four-poster, covered in deep red bed linen. He knew exactly how warm the quilt was, and how comfortable the mattress felt, but it was always so far between uses.</p><p>Slipping off his shoes and rolling off his socks, he wiggled his toes – clawed and padded like any cats – in the deep, soft carpet. The gloves came off next, revealing hands with pads and clipped claws instead of fingernails. These too found their way to the carpet and the regal gentleman stretched like any ally cat that had found itself a warm corner. Removing vest, shirt and trousers, the Baron rubbed his whole furred body against the carpet for a while before finding his nightdress and cap and snuggling into bed, curling his tail around his body. Slipping into sleep, anyone listening might wonder if he snored or purred in his sleep, certainly he appeared content between the sheets.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Resolved</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A lively ray of light slipped into his room between the curtains, and landed squarely on his face. There is laughed at the feline as he scrunched up his closed eyes in an attempt to keep out the light, before they opened and the emeralds shone in his face. Awake, but so comfortable he felt no desire to move, the Baron remembered the piles of case reports that he had today to double check and return to their right places.</p><p>He pulled back the quilt and, enjoying the feel of the carpet beneath his feet again, headed to his bathroom for a shower. He didn't need to shower often, as turning to wood generally dealt efficiently with all the problems showering tended to, but when he had slept in his bed, he found a shower refreshing, it also made sure that his wasn't rubbed the wrong way. He knew that most cats licked themselves clean, and didn't like getting wet, but he quite enjoyed it, and besides, he didn't care much for hairballs – the invariable result of licking oneself clean.</p><p>Dry, brushed, and dressed once more, the Baron returned to the paperwork. Toto returned from Neverland just in time to see him slide the newest report into place and shut the cabinet drawer with satisfaction.</p><p>"I'm impressed, Baron. I thought for sure that it would take months to restore order," the crow commented, staring down in amazement from his perch on the railing of the inside balcony.</p><p>"How did Peter take the news?" The cat asked, ignoring the comment about the remarkable transformation in the small house. Muta wasn't there to take offence, so life could continue without argument for now.</p><p>"I told him, he went into shock, I took a nap while the lost boys comforted him. When I woke up, they told me that Peter had gone to Wendy Darling's window, and they didn't know when he would be back, or even if. I don't think the fairy took it too well either." The crow reported.</p><p>Nodding, Baron withdrew the Darling/Pan case from its place in the filing cabinet and made note of the progressions.</p><p>"Will one of your crow friends keep tabs on them for us Toto? It's a delicate situation that will require at least observation – oh, hello Miss Bell," the Baron said, rising from his chair when the fairy flew in through the window Toto usually used for coming and going in the house.</p><p>"Peter has taken Wendy to Neverland again, they're going to have the Indians marry them," the delicate woman said, flitting her wings now and then out of habit.</p><p>"Please, have a seat, can I offer you some tea?" asked the Baron, gesturing from one to the other.</p><p>"Oh, no, I'm on a flying visit, just presenting their thanks, and mine. With Wendy to look after him, I don't have to. I enjoyed every second of it of course, but I always had my own work to do, and playing with Peter meant I neglected my other work. Oh, what am I going on about? Here, this is for you," the pixie said, lifting a satchel off her shoulders.  "From all of us. One bag pixie dust, guaranteed to make you fly when used in conjunction with faith, trust and a wonderful thought. You needn't use more than a pinch at a time, and how long it lasts depends on the thought you use. Oh and I always forget this bit: on your head, Baron, not feet, arms chest of clothes, just your head, beneath the hat between the ears."</p><p>The Baron accepted the bag with thanks and a bow, causing the winged lady to blush lightly as she curtsied in return.</p><p>"Farewell Baron, Toto," she said, flitting up and out the window once more.</p><p>"Well, I suppose that takes care of that," the Baron said, putting the satchel of pixie dust down on the table while he finished the case report for the young couple who had just solidified their union.</p><p>"I suggest you lock that up, Baron, Muta might think it's an ingredient and taste some," cawed Toto, pointing at the bag with his beak.</p><p>"Or are you just worried that I'll get used to flying on my own and won't want you around any more? That's ridiculous Toto, though I will lock it up." The Baron didn't bother to tell his friend that all his happy memories were tinged with sadness since his fiance had died in Germany. With her, Louise had taken all his feelings, he didn't have happy, wonderful thoughts any more, but then, at least he didn't wallow in sadness either. Keeping busy was the thing.</p><p>"You're not even going to try it?" asked the bird, even more surprised by this than the speed with which the house had been reorganised.</p><p>"No, well, not just now anyway."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Alone?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Toto took him to Miss Mary Poppins' wedding, and her funeral. He was even in her will; she had left him her tape measure, knowing how he had admired her use of it in her cases. Her husband, Bert, had helped him to shrink it down to a manageable size for the figurine. What worried him though, was that however long he searched the instrument, he could find nowhere on it those words: Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way. It seemed to genuinely measure up the person it was held to, though he did not test he theory.</p><p>Cobwebs may well have formed in the filing cabinet, had the Baron not been so careful about cleaning. His work was that light now though. He had had no reason to leave the refuge at all since that funeral. Everyone was solving their own problems, or didn't need <em>him</em> because someone <em>else</em> was there.</p><p>He was alone with his thoughts most of the time. Muta and Toto were some company, but he far pre-dated the cat, and the crow simply didn't understand the stoic wooden feline.</p><p>"Hello? I need help, I'm going to get dragged off to the cat kingdom," a voice said from outside the window. From the other side of Muta, a girl peered around the paper and looked at him standing in the window.</p><p>He had been sleeping in his wooden form, his carved smile in place – the only one he ever wore any more – and his emerald eyes catching the fading light. Then all the light came back, filling the refuge.</p><p>"No one's impressed with your cheesy light show, Baron, turn it off," Muta said, hiding behind his newspaper as all the light focused on the Bureau.</p><p>He didn't want to turn it off. He hadn't wanted to light up the world like that for so long, it felt a shame to stop now, but he obliged. He couldn't keep up the "cheesy" light show, walk out the front door, and introduce himself all at once. He had to be able to see the light to make the show, and leaving the window for the door would cut it off anyway.</p><p>"I see you have a visitor today Baron, how unusual," Toto said. The Baron had introduced himself, explained about being a Creation, and introduced Toto to the young lady bringing her trouble to them without even much noticing.</p><p>It was unusual. It hadn't used to be unusual.</p><p>"Indeed, she's quite a fetching one too," the words just slipped out of his mouth. He didn't even realise they had come until his ears told him so, but conversation had moved on, no one seemed to notice the way his mouth had run away from him, so her pretended that he had not said it.</p><p>The young lady's story was truly incredible: saving a cat from being hit by a truck, and now the whole kingdom was thanking her for saving their prince, and getting it wrong.</p><p>"Serves you right!" What ever had gotten into Muta? They hadn't had a client for so long, had he forgotten how much he enjoyed them? Had he forgotten the way he used to pursue cases years after, just because he wanted to know how they were doing?</p><p>"Please don't fight! I'll just leave, I don't want to cause any trouble!"</p><p>Well, he couldn't allow that. At last a chance to be doing, and she really did need help. This wasn't just a slightly cold family environment that needed warming up. He stepped calmly between her and anything she might think of doing, and said the first thing he could think of.</p><p>"I didn't catch your name," simple, but good. Knowing her name would be useful if he was going to help her out of her trouble.</p><p>"Haru," she stammered. "It's Haru." She seemed to be reminding herself.</p><p>"Well, Miss Haru, do come into the Bureau." Then at least he could shut her in and stop her from leaving. She had come to him for help, and she was going to get it. It was odd that a disembodied voice had told her about the Bureau, anyone would think the place was forgotten, they had received so little business, but obviously someone remembered them. It made him feel better within himself to know this.</p><p>Tea, with milk, Muta was being difficult, Haru was leaving… reverse psychology, quick! Ah, success. Cake, Toto's special mulberries – was there anything she could do to help?</p><p>"Yes, there is something. I need you to always believe in yourself, have faith in who you are, and you will have nothing to fear." Help with the whipped cream.</p><p>"…maybe this is the place I belong…" he heard her say softly. No, no one belonged here. It was a refuge; it wasn't a place to belong. It was a place to hide until one figured out where they belonged. He didn't belong here, but he didn't really belong anywhere else either, so here he had stayed, and made a home for himself, a place where he could make others feel welcome.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Action</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Aah! Please don't let them take me away!" Skip the tea.</p><p>The Baron grabbed his hat, coat and cane, then jumped onto Toto's back. Speed was required, and he would have a hard time keeping up with the cats on his own. Get above the trees! Follow those lights – they're all we have to follow them by.</p><p>This is it, the cat kingdom. Time to save the girl.</p><p>"I'm an entertainer," from his attire, they guards on the side gate are prepared to believe him. They wave him through and another cat directs him to the dressing room where entertainers wait to be summoned, and may check make up and costumes.</p><p>The Baron decided to take advantage of the availability of costumes, and even grabbed a mask. There was no real knowing how well Miss Haru would react to seeing him immediately, better to pretend to her also.</p><p>"Oh, no. I'm a meowsy dancer. Oh! No! Now I'm even starting to talk like a cat!" She is obviously changed. Her fur is lovely – the colour of tea with milk in, and such small, delicate paws, and her dark chocolate hair and amber-ebony eyes as just as entrancing as they were when they peered past Muta's newspaper and saw him that first time. Was it really just half an hour ago?</p><p>"Just trust me," a clue. She may or may not have understood it, but she took his hand anyway. Perhaps it was that it was a <em>hand</em>, rather than a paw, which reassured her. He probably should not have delayed, asked her to dance and held her close, but it had been such a long time since he had even a new face to look at, and hers was so lovely that he didn't want to stop.</p><p>"Stop right there, pal!" The king. Haru had realised just a tad louder than perhaps she should have.</p><p>"Baron!" She cried. He had not expected her to be so incredibly overjoyed to see him, but he did not move. There was not time now to return her desperate embrace, there was not emotion solid to understand why he would want to, though he felt somewhere down the length of his tail that he should.</p><p>Dawn, the snowy serving cat said that they had until dawn to get Miss Haru back to her own world. Back to her own life, where she belonged.</p><p>Rushed and hurried and frightened as each member of the party was, the labyrinth was a fine place to share stories and laugh together, and it was good to find Muta again, though in honesty, the Baron had quite enjoyed time with Haru by himself. She really was a wonderfully sweet girl, and very bright. It was she, after all, who noticed that a section of the wall did not belong in that particular place.</p><p>"Do I have to learn to like mice?"</p><p>"I shouldn't give up just yet, Haru." He had spotted the prince arrive, with his guard, and the little white serving cat that had helped them before.</p><p>She had saved more than one cat in her life. Truly, she had a warm heart, and felt the warmth of helping others to be thanks enough for her actions. She was a wonderful girl, or would be, if she could just reach the exit before the dawn came.</p><p>"I'll get her to the exit!" At last, Muta seemed to be his old self again, relishing in the act of helping others as he had once done.</p><p>"Where am I?"</p><p>"What have you done?" The wretched cat king had blown up the tower from underneath them, had <em>proposed</em> to Miss Haru, and still wanted to claim her even after she had resoundingly declared her refusal to him. Now the shaven ruler was laughing at him.</p><p>"The tower is hundreds of feet shorter now, I wouldn't be surprised if the exit moved as well, babe." <em>Babe.</em> How insulting. Though the wretched king probably called <em>everyone</em> babe, he shouldn't take it personally. There wasn't time to; Miss Haru was in trouble.</p><p>"Baron, just for the record, I think I may have a little crush on you."</p><p>She had blushed in his arms, said he was cool even before she knew him. <em>He</em> had accidentally called her fetching, and found himself yelling her name for no reason at all. What was he to say to that?</p><p>"Just for the record, I admire a young woman who speaks from the heart," tasteful, but cold. "If you ever need us, you will always know where to find us." She was leaning into his hand, and he could feel his insides churning at the thought of actually saying goodbye, he didn't want to say goodbye, he wanted to stay in her life. It had been wonderful; riding on her shoulder as she carefully walked down a flight of crows to land on the roof of her school.</p><p>"Until then, trust yourself." There, he had gotten away without saying goodbye.</p><p>"<em>I'll miss you!"</em> Her words rang in his ears as he flew away on Toto's back. When had the cat and the bird started fighting? He couldn't remember, he only knew that he would never forget the girl with chocolate hair and amber-ebony eyes. He hoped, perhaps selfishly, that she would never forget him either. He had a report to write now; a time to reflect upon the events just passed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Remember</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Toto was asleep, Muta was asleep, and Baron was unlocking the cabinet in which he had, so very long ago, put the pixie dust from Miss Tinker Bell. A pinch of it on top of his head, used in conjunction with faith, trust and a wonderful thought.</p><p>That was why he had the satchel out for the first time since he had put it there. He had a wonderful thought, but he was afraid of it, and wanted to know if there was any kind of grounding to it.</p><p>"<em>Baron, just for the record, I think I may have a little crush on you."</em></p><p>He began to float. He glided cautiously around, and donned his had and coat, collected his cane, and slipped the satchel of pixie dust over his shoulders just in case. The Baron flew silently out the window and into the deep night that lay beyond the refuge in which he had hidden for so long, waiting for someone to see him.</p><p>He had been re-reading her case file. Perhaps it wasn't healthy to do so, but even a year after, he still thought of her, he didn't need the file to recall her face perfectly. Her final, private, words to him were not in the file. He wasn't sure why he had felt obliged to leave them out, perhaps because he didn't want Muta and Toto commenting upon them.</p><p>He remembered the way she had leant into his hand as he stroked her cheek, that dreamy look upon her face, and he flew a little higher, a little faster. Muta had found out where she lived from the ally cats, so that they could put it in the case file, but more so that he could sneak food from her. It was certain that she remembered them all. Muta often came back from her kitchen window saying that she had asked after everyone, and that she wanted to know all the details of what had happened in his day, just so that she would know that she hadn't dreamt the whole thing.</p><p>He had left a note for Muta and Toto, saying that he was going away for a while, didn't know when he would be back, and not to worry. He had finally reached a point in his life where he felt that he was finally able to help himself.</p><p>He reached the house and flew around the windows, searching for one that might be hers. At last, he found it. She had grown in the year since he had seen her, but that was to be expected. As he understood it from Muta, Haru had turned eighteen the week before – the full-moon-shaped cat had commented with much purring upon the slice of cake that she had given him.</p><p>Lighting as gently as he could upon her windowsill, the wooden figurine sat down and watched the young woman sleeping. He could not bring himself to wake her; she looked so peaceful and content. He could wait until morning. It wasn't all that far off anyway.</p><p>The sun began to peek over and between the tall city buildings a few short hours after he arrived at her window. Another hour passed as he watched the light seep into her room, creeping up the length of her bed to reach her lovely face, then her alarm clock went off.</p><p>The Baron was surprised to see the contraption near the foot of her bed, on the other side of the windowpane right next to him, in fact.</p><p>She sat up in bed and slapped her hand down on the snooze button before flopping back into her pillow. A second later, she was bolt upright in her bed once more, staring right at the figure on the other side of the window to her clock.</p><p>"<em>Baron!"</em> she breathed, keeping her voice to a whisper, just in case her mother heard. Quickly, she opened the window and let him in, simultaneously trying to make her hair look nice after being mussed by sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Happiness</h2></a>
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    <p>"Good morning," he said, not coming in through the open window. He knew that some people didn't care about a girl's reputation, but the Baron was very old-fashioned in this regard, and while he was quite comfortable with the idea of meeting a sweetheart at her window, he was not about to step <em>through</em> that window.</p><p>"I was wondering if you might help me with something," he asked, as polite and bland as he possibly could be however much he was sweating inside. If he had not been wearing a high collar and bow tie, it would have been possible to watch his Adam's apple dance in nervousness.</p><p>"Of course, anything Baron," she said, curious what he could possibly need <em>her</em> help with.</p><p>"I've been having rather sleepless nights, I was wondering what you would suggest to calm them," queried the Baron, leading up to his real problem by starting with a symptom of it.</p><p>"Well, that depends on why you're sleepless. If it were because you aren't tired, I would suggest a book, or if it's because your mind can't wind down I'd say count sheep." The young woman said, crossing her legs on her bed before him.</p><p>"I find myself unable to stop thinking, and all my thoughts lead back to one subject in particular," he confessed, while at the same time confessing very little.</p><p>"If Hiromi said something like that, I'd ask her what the guy's name was, but for you, I suppose it would have to be a girl."</p><p>The cedar figure could hear and see the pain that the young woman was trying to conceal as she spoke.</p><p>"Her name is Haru," said the cat, looking up at her, nervous to see her reaction. He saw surprise, and looked down quickly, not wanting to know any more, but when she extended a hand to him, palm up, he climbed on without thought.</p><p>"Give me five minutes, I'll be down at the front door," she said softly, breathing tantalisingly in his ear.</p><p>He nearly fainted with delight, but the pixie dust was still going strong and he flew out the window, floating gently down to the doorstep to wait for the one that he loved so strangely.</p><p>The feeling was just so <em>big</em>, he wasn't sure his small body could fit all of it in. The pixie dust started to itch between his ears; lights flashed behind his eyes and something inside of him went <em>pop!</em> He felt dizzy and was bracing himself against the doorframe when it opened.</p><p>"Well, this is unexpected," Haru said, smiling uncertainly at him.</p><p>Something was different, he knew. It took a couple of seconds, but then it hit him. She was looking up at him, and he knew his feet were still on the ground, so he wasn't flying.</p><p>"I have no idea <em>how</em> this happened, but, I think, I'm glad that it did," mused the Baron, looking at the girl before him. She was wearing a white summer dress with a yellow stripe around the hem. He thought she looked like an angel</p><p>"I know I am," the girl said, he smile becoming more certain.</p><p>He smiled back, and brushed a lock of orange-blonde hair out of still slightly cat-shaped emerald eyes. Reaching into the pixie dust satchel, he gave Haru a little, as well as a little more for himself, just in case.</p><p>"Fly with me?" he asked, extending a hand to her.</p><p>Rather than answer, Haru just slipped her hand into his and beamed another smile. They took off together in the morning light, but they hadn't gone far when the Baron headed down again. Haru could barely go down at all when she saw the church that was the Baron's target.</p><p>Landing, the Baron went down on one knee before her, gently holding both of her hands in his. "Marry me?" he asked.</p><p>She couldn't even speak. She couldn't make her mouth do a thing, it was too busy smiling, and her vision blurred as tears of happiness filled her eyes and started running down her cheeks. She nodded.</p><p>He stood all in a rush, wrapping his arms around her and twirling her about him.</p><p>"Well, that's a wonderful way to start the day," said the priest as he opened the doors. The ceremony wasn't long, there were no speeches or family members to cry, laugh or present congratulations, but there was a kiss.</p><p>It was a new sensation for the Baron, and sent fireworks off inside of him, and the world looked more bright and beautiful than it had for a long time.</p><p>Leaving the church behind, Baron was ready to finally ready to see how he fared with Mary's tape measure. Somehow, it had found it's way into his pocket. It read: <em>Baron Humbert von Gikkingken, purr-fectly whole at last.</em></p><p>"Now that I have you to share my life with," he said, kissing his wife lightly as he returned it to his pocket.</p><p>She wasn't going to let him get away with that, and pulled him firmly by his neck so that their faces practically collided. They didn't notice that they had started floating again.</p><p>They decide where to honeymoon later.</p>
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